Far-left columnist Katie Wilson wrote in Crosscut this reflection on the losses of the extreme left on Election Day:

Mainstream media are more than happy to provide one explanation: “Defund the police” and “abolitionism” are ideas that repel, rather than attract, a majority of the electorate, across all racial groups and even in the nation’s most progressive enclaves. I think the election results do force us to reckon with this argument. Minneapolis voters declined to replace their police department with a new public safety agency, even as they voiced support for rent control; in other words, this wasn’t a wholesale anti-progressive turn.

To entertain this does not mean that the goal is wrong, or that progress toward it cannot be made by electoral means, or even that the slogan should never be used. But if the left wants to win elections, we may need to think more deeply and strategically about what messages are right for what purposes. [emphasis added]

Remember this point as we move forward with a new Mayor, a new mix of views on the City Council, and more pro-enforcement City Attorney. This extreme ideology of defunding police, abolishing law and order, and maintaining a population of people on streets is not finished, they’re just recalibrating their message.

Their aims have not changed and they will continue coming back with more and more extreme ideas. The election shifted the conversation in the right direction, but we have to continue pushing for more honest debate on what actually works to help people and manifest our progressive values, and what is an extreme policy experiment.

We’re just getting started. There’s much more work to do to change Seattle.